Law of Inverse Fertility

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The fertility of a couple is inversely proportional to their desire to have a child.

The Rule of Drama, as applied to parenthood. Couples who want to have children will have trouble not only conceiving, but adopting and using surrogates as well. People who don't want children, however, will be faced with unwanted pregnancies even if they used birth control. Particularly if the conception was forced upon them. In fact, the page image leaves out rape, which is about 200% (that's right, you'll probably have twins). Teenagers, of course, will get pregnant their first time, double points if they thought they couldn't. The reason for this, of course, is obvious: "woman becomes pregnant with longed-for child immediately" and "woman doesn't want to get pregnant and doesn't" don't exactly make the most thrilling plotlines. At least the woman with a baby she doesn't want can give it up to the woman who is desperate to conceive but expect much angst along the way.

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If it's the man who was reliably told he was infertile, expect Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe to rear its head; to maximize the drama, usually the woman knows he's the father.

In many cases the stress of trying to have a baby will suppress fertility, and, once the couple decides to adopt or give up, the stress disappears, and: hooplah! They have a baby! Sometimes it's after they went through the hassle of adopting, as if Mother Nature felt humorous one day.

Conversely, if an unexpectedly expecting woman starts warming up to the idea of being a mother, her chances of a Convenient Miscarriage or Tragic Stillbirth double. Or it'll turn out that she was never pregnant in the first place. This particular trick is common on shows where Status Quo Is God and having a baby would spoil everything; whether the former or latter version is used depends on how much drama the writers wish to evoke. And even that's assuming they let things get that far; some kind of pre-existing condition getting in the way of conception can be milked for Angst as much as they want.

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If, against the odds, a couple who genuinely wants a baby manages to get pregnant without complications, don't expectboth parents to live to see it.

One limited case where a woman who wants to get pregnant can do so — after one night, even — is if she is sneaking into the man's bed with a Bed Trick because she is his wife. This may be because the man does not want her to become pregnant; it is often the condition he set on accepting her as his wife.

This is very old, involuntary infertility being found in the opening of a number of Fairy Tales, before the birth of the main character, and just about required for the Wonder Child. Note that this law gets revoked during the Dénouement for Babies Ever After. In The Bible, the fertility of the couple is inversely proportionate to the eventual significance of the child to God's Big Plan.

Examples

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Anime & Manga

Berserk: Being career mercenaries, parenthood was probably the last thing on Guts and Casca's minds when they finally consummated their relationship. And it only took their first time to get knocked up. Alas, things do not end well for them or their child because of the Eclipse and what Griffith does to Casca in particular.

The Dragon Ball franchise has an uneven history with this trope. Trunks was apparently the result of a one-night stand between Bulma and Vegeta. And given the amount of time Goku spends either dead, traveling through space, training in the wilderness, or bedridden with a killer virus between and during the Freeza and Android / Cell sagas, it's amazing that he and Chichi ever found time to conceive Goten.

Word of God is that Goten was conceived in the ten-day span between the announcement of the Cell Games and Goku's second death. Though whether this was planned or not is never stated. It was probably just an off-screen Pre-Climax Climax.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Izumi and Sig tried desperately to have a child, and when Izumi finally became pregnant the child was stillborn. She was then convinced that she killed her child a second time when she attempted to transmute the child to life, though thankfully this was eventually shown to not be the case. For this, her "divine punishment" from the Truth was to lose her uterus along with a few other organs, effectively making her infertile there on out and giving her a nasty mixture of Incurable Cough of Death plus Blood from the Mouth which either kills her in the end (2003 anime) or is sorta healed by Ed and Al's father (manga and second anime).

Reuenthal bemoans this trope in Legend of Galactic Heroes; while his friend Mittermeyer and his wife have failed to produce any children despite years of trying, Reuenthal's short fling with a woman who hates him immediately produces a son, despite Reuenthal's desire never to have children.

In the H-OVA Alternate Continuity of Tokubetsu Byoutou The head doctor has trouble having a child despite wanting one to continue her legacy. Complicating matters is that she is a true hermaphrodite and thus her body has never gone through menses and produces sperm of low-quality and low in quantity. She is able to eventually subvert the trope through medicine she created.

Ballads

In the Child BalladTam Lin, Fair Janet becomes pregnant after her first meeting with Tam Lin. Which raises the spectre of an Arranged Marriage to ensure that the baby is born in wedlock, and has her resorting to some desperate measures to ensure the right father marries her.

Out then spak her father dear, And he spak meek and mild; "And ever alas, sweet Janet," he says, "I think thou gaes wi child."

When the Vision and the Scarlet Witch fell in love and married, they desperately wanted a child together despite the literal impossibility of that because the Vision is an android. Yet in the face of pretty much 0% odds, the Scarlet Witch so determined to make this happen that she was able to use magic and Mephisto's soul fragments (though she didn't know it at the time) to impregnate herself with twin sons that... were also 'equally Vision's' somehow. This appears to be a subversion of this trope in the face of all logic, but then the Trauma Conga Line ensues... only to wind right back to subverting it again when the Scarlet Witch gets her twin sons back again, via reincarnation.

In the Green Arrow miniseries The Longbow Hunters, Ollie tells Dinah he'd like to get married and have children. She says no because their lives are too dangerous. A few years later she changes her mind...at which point they're informed that due to damage she had sustained during Longbow Hunters, she's not physically capable of having kids anymore.

In the Salvation arc of Preacher, Toby and never-seen girlfriend Turleen aren't even thinking of having a baby (or much else, for that matter) when he tells Jodie that he thought she was pregnant because she'd missed her period. They're not worried, because it happened once before, last month. God, these two are such idiots.

In Runaways, Victor learns that his mother wanted a child but was infertile and unable to adopt because of her past as a drug mule. She was so desperate that she ended up letting Ultron build Victor as a half robot/half human with her supplying the human genetic material.

Spider-Man's Aunt May had a miscarriage that left her infertile. She and Uncle Ben were more than happy to adopt Peter when his parents died, and at least one story mentions that Ben and May are his godparents, so Child Services automatically placed him with them.

Ma and Pa Kent wanted a child but weren't able to have one before baby Kal-El landed in their backyard. Some stories try to explain this, like Superman & Batman: Generations which shows that Martha took a stray bullet to the abdomen when a criminal tried to gun down Jonah Hexx.

In Y: The Last Man, the (literal) last man on Earth manages to have sex exactly twice (in one night, with the same woman) in the years directly following the plague that killed all the other men. Nine months later, guess who's the last father on Earth?

During Convergence, we find out that the pre-FlashpointLois Lane is pregnant with the pre-FlashpointSuperman's child. This was only possible because the dome they were trapped under shut off all superpowers, thus making Clark human. Thankfully, when the dome's raised and Clark's powers return, it doesn't suddenly empower the child.

A long time ago there were a King and Queen who said every day, "Ah, if only we had a child!" but they never had one. But it happened that once when the Queen was bathing, a frog crept out of the water on to the land, and said to her, "Your wish shall be fulfilled; before a year has gone by, you shall have a daughter."

In "Tatterhood," the queen is so eager to have a child, she neglects to follow the magical directions to get them.

One fairy tale type — include the Gypsy "The Tailor's Clever Daughter" — has a man refuse to sleep with his bride. Her solution is to slip from the prison where he keeps her and trick him into sleeping with her as a different woman, three times. Getting pregnant each time, often after one night.

Fanfiction

Micaiah and Sothe tried to have a baby in The Tainted Grimoire. However, Vaticus arranged for Micaiah to be poisoned resulting in a miscarriage and Micaiah becoming infertile.

Seems to happen/have happened a couple of times with Wanda having accidentally got pregnant by John Constantine when she definitely did not want a child - or at least, not one by Constantine, resulting in Hermione and Pepper being pregnant with Tony's baby during the latter half of Child of the Storm and the beginning of Ghosts of the Past, again unintentionally, though both she and Tony seem very happy to be parents.

Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel wanted a child but couldn't have one. Fury dangled the possibility of one under their noses as an incentive to take the Infinity Formula (which is described as essentially healing and rebooting everything) and work for him after they destroyed the Philosopher's Stone, to Dumbledore's disapproval. It worked and in chapter 66, Perenelle is noted as being visibly pregnant.

The Harry Potter fanfic Burning Down the House has this happen to Ron and Hermione. To add insult to injury, Harry and Ginny have sex without a condom once and Ginny gets pregnant.

In Touhou MAMA, infertility (assuming she's attempted to have children) is suggested to be the possible source of the 'howling grief of something unresolved' that Ran described Yukari as having and that would explain why it is she gravitated towards Reimu in Mine and her unwillingness to let her go, though it is unknown if she is infertile or not.

In a recent fanfic, Yukari's supposed in infertility is discussed in The Child She Couldn't Have but, however, it is a tad unclear and it seems only Yukari knows.

In chapter II, where it tells it from Yukari's perspective, she states she is and her chances of having children are zero.

On the other hand, in chapter five of Gensokyo 20XXI, Ran pursues a romance with a male kitsune and a few chapters later, in chapter 8, after having been thinking she was getting fat (despite her age and knowledge as a kitsune, she is quite inexperienced, likely due to being servile), she discovers she was indeed pregnant.

In Foundling, Yukari's infertility is extended to her also miscarrying, as, not only does she have very low chances of conceiving, she's never carried a pregnancy to term, while Ran is mentioned to have had a litter or two by the time of meeting Reimu.

Used both ways in Myths and Birthrights. Fleur desperately wants to be a mother, only to discover she's infertile. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash, who wants to pursue her racing career, gets magically pregnant against her wishes.

A Death Note fanfic Mama plays it totally straight both ways, to disastrous effects. Karol a maid tries over and over to have a baby but either doesn't conceive or ends up miscarrying soon after if she does. Her employer Adele is pregnant but it's implied that she doesn't really want the baby (it's also implied that the baby is the product of an extramarital affair). Karol eventually snaps, breaks in and shoots Adele and her husband in their home and kidnaps the baby soon after he's born. The baby would grow up to be L.

In the Axis Powers Hetalia fanfic Tizenot, Hungary's shown to really want a baby with Austria. A miscarriage, however, shatters both of them.

The Little Cherub series. Raven falls pregnant after she and Beast Boy have sex while drunk. She runs away and only returns with their kid a few years later. Her and Beast Boy start a relationship, have three more kids (none exactly planned for, though very much welcome), get married... come seven years later, and Raven is pregnant again despite strict birth control.

Conceived has both Starfire and Raven falling pregnant due to a villain's weapon's side effects (Starfire from Robin, Raven from Beast Boy).

A Late Night of Reflection. The whole fic is Beast Boy thinking about how difficult it was for him and Raven to finally have their son.

In Timing is Everything, played for both couples and causes quite a bit of tension. On the one hand, Robin and Starfire have trouble conceiving - turns out they are genetically compatible despite being from different planets, but human sperm is too weak for her reproductive system. First, there is an argument about using IVF, then an attempt fails. Raven, on the other hand, has a But I Can't Be Pregnant! moment - she's only supposed to be capable of having children with someone who has demon blood. However, she's dating Beast Boy, and apparently, his shapeshifting abilities extend to his sperm enough to fool Raven's reproductive system. Then Beast Boy recommends that Starfire sits in the T-Car next time she's implanted since that's where Raven got pregnant. Apparently, it works.

Seen in Of Lilies and Chestnuts. Fleur De Lis had to put her dreams of having an adorable little filly of her own on hold for years due to her modeling career, and once she's finally settled down with Fancy Pants and secure in her upper-class social standing, she naturally finds out she can't conceive a child. After Fancy Pants comforts her through a few days of depression, they look to adopt a child, which results in an excitable teenage bat pony crashing into their lives.

From A Broken Heart, an Untold Story, and a Sister's Regret, we find out that Ragyo almost died in a childbirth as she gave birth to Satsuki due to complications and, due to said complications and the resulting surgeries, she initially didn't think she could carry another pregnancy to term, growing Nui in a Uterine Replicator and not thinking she was pregnant with Ryuuko until someone pointed it out.

Played both straight and averted in The Second Try. Asuka doesn't want to have a baby, even to the point where she's starving herself in a misguided attempt to induce a miscarriage (which, as Shinji later notes, put her in more danger than the baby). However, once she sees the first ultrasound, that changes. The aversion comes with Aki being born alive and healthy.

Izumi's situation, as mentioned in the Anime folder, is touched on in the final installment of the Elemental Chess Trilogy. Alphonse's daughter asks about the whole thing, including why she and Sig never adopted a child since they couldn't have their own.

This is part of Lady Delphine's briefly-mentioned history in the Contractually Obligated Chaos series. She had one daughter, who died as a baby, and was never able to have other children.

At first this trope is played straight in the Mass Effect series Parable, which covers the events of the game trilogy. Shepard's mother abused drugs during her pregnancy, so Jane was born biotic but also infertile, which is a sore point for her when she marries Garrus; she sees herself as unable to give him a family.

Then the trope is averted during the events of [ME2], thanks to the Reaper techs used for her resurrection; Jane becomes pregnant with two hybrids, and despite the approaching war and the knowledge that their children won't be able to live in peace for what they are, the couple decide to go through with it and carry the two fetuses to term.

Played straight again for the storyline of [ME3], after Jane volunteers herself as Mordin's test subject to create a specialized cure for the Genophage. The experience succeeds, but its side effects - combined with the Reaper techs inside her being fried by the Crucible - render Jane infertile once more, completely destroying her and Garrus's wish of giving their twins more siblings.

In All or Nothing, Harry becomes pregnant after a single non-consensual encounter with Charlie Weasley, who was under a glamour and got Harry drunk.

According to the backstory of Skyhold Academy Yearbook, the eponymous school came into being in part because its founders were never able to have children of their own.

In Soul Chess, Lelouch and Nemu have sex dozens of times without any pregnancies, yet a single instance of Sex for Solace with Susanna leaves her pregnant.

Mr and Mrs Gold: Because of his curse, Rumpelstiltskin is sterile and therefore cannot give Belle a baby that way. When he finds out that Belle wants one, he tells her that the next child he bargains for will become hers. This is why she tries to make sure that Cinderella honors her side of the deal. This applies in Storybrooke until Rose finds out she is pregnant by the end of the story, averting the trope.

In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Inko and Hisashi Midoriya try and fail numerous times to have a child. They're so distraught after discovering their infertility that they take a vacation to clear their heads. Luckily for them, a certain spaceship came streaking through the sky over their campsite that night.

In Second Chances by TheNovelArtist, Emma was conceived by Adrien and Chloe after one drunken night while they were actually in the process of a divorce. Nathanael and Marinette, on the other hand, were trying for several years to have a child, but without success. Averted when Adrien and Marinette get married; they are both expecting to require fertility treatments in order to give Emma siblings, but a few months later, they get definite proof the problem wasn't about Mari.

In the Jem fic The Ripple Effect, Raya was reunited with Luis while on tour in Mexico. They went on a date, Raya lost her virginity, then Raya went back to America. Four months afterwards, Raya finds out she's pregnant.

Zelda from Blind Courage meets Ganondorf for the first time right before her seventeenth birthday. They meet again a few days afterwards and end up having sex. The next month, Zelda realizes she's pregnant. She hasn't even seen Ganondorf four times yet, though the Reincarnation Romance element of their relationship draws them to one another.

Films — Animated

In Disney's Hercules, the title character's adoptive human parents have prayed to the gods for years to bless them with a child, and they see Herc as the answer to that prayer.

Up: Subtly implied in the opening montage: a brief shot of Carl and Ellie in a doctor's office. There's a picture of a baby on the wall so presumably, it's her OB-GYN. Ellie is crying. It's especially heartbreaking since the buildup has Carl and Ellie making a room for the baby. Word of God says it was a miscarriage that left Ellie unable to have more children. What we see is what little they could actually show/feel comfortable putting in a movie for their young target audience.

Mentioned in the opening narration of Sleeping Beauty, as King Stefan and his queen longed for many years to have a child. The wish was finally granted, but they only were able to keep Aurora for a very short time before they had to surrender her to the good fairies (to protect her from Maleficent), and so they effectively remained childless anyway.

Films — Live-Action

2:37: Neither Melody nor her brother Marcus wanted her to get pregnant when he raped her.

Baby Mama. Though it should be noted that the main character is over 35.

In Beetlejuice the one cloud in Adam and Barbara's blissful marriage is their inability to have a child - but by movie's end, they've become sort-of surrogate parents to Lydia.

Cthulhu (2007). The father of the protagonist wants his gay son to start a family; naturally, he refuses and snidely suggests pressuring his sister instead. She immediately storms off crying as she's been unable to have children. It turns out the father has his own dark reasons for continuing their line and later arranges for the protagonist to be drugged and raped by a woman to ensure this happens.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Queenie wants a child but can't have one. The only child she raises is Benjamin, who loves her and later says that Queenie is born to be a mother.

In Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Helen wanted to have children with Charles, but had two miscarriages. Meanwhile, he had two unplanned children with his mistress.

Part of Bethany's backstory in Dogma is that her husband left her when he found out that she couldn't have kids. (Information in the script reveals that her sterility came from an earlier abortion that her husband didn't want her to have.) The movie ends with her pregnant, apparently from a supernatural conception a la the Virgin Mary.

The trope is played very straight with The Flintstones, in the film as well as the cartoon. The difference is that in the film, the Rubbles decide to adopt, and Fred empties his savings account to lend them the money so they can afford to do so.

In For Keeps, it apparently only took one wild weekend for Stan and Darcy to conceive, and they were definitely not looking to have a child at that time.

In Hannah and Her Sisters, Mickey is told he is infertile. He and his wife Hannah have twins via in-vitro fertilization and a sperm donation from a family friend. Years later, Mickey marries Holly and she surprises him at Thanksgiving by telling him that she's pregnant.

The introduction to Idiocracy features a highly intelligent couple who want to have a baby but keep putting it off for various reasons (not ready; not settled; husband's infertile; husband's dead; husband's frozen sperm melted in an accident...) while dumb white trash Clevon having a continually growing family tree. Particularly funny when Clevon gets into a crotch-related accident, but still has a dozen more kids after that.

In Instant Family, Ellie's younger sister has been trying to get pregnant for years, with her husband making snarky comments about her desire to try fertility treatments. Ellie and Pete never tried conception, but eventually decide to take in three foster children, making them parents first. Ellie's sister then says that her example has inspired her and her husband to adopt as well (not only because it's cheaper, but that is a factor). The last scene of the movie is Ellie and Pete officially adopting Lizzie, Juan, and Lita, and the sister is in the audience holding hands with a young boy she's presumably fostering... while she's visibly pregnant.

In Johnny Belinda, Belinda gets pregnant after her first time, which was also rape.

Handled with wonderful subtlety in the film Julie & Julia. At one point near the beginning, Julia gives a woman passing by with a stroller a longing look; later in the film, she gets a letter informing her that her sister is pregnant, and while she tries to express joy she can't help bursting into tears instead. That's all we get on the matter.

In the dark comedy Kingdom Come, Luanne's angst comes from her inability to have children. She had multiple miscarriages, her latest one lost in an empty fried chicken bucket (she was ordered on bed rest and was using it as a makeshift bedpan while her husband Ray went to the drug store to buy a real one; a KFC bucket then a triggers bad memories for her). She and Ray stopped trying after that. Towards the end of the movie, she discovers that she's pregnant again, and the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue over the end credits show her and Ray with a baby girl.

Justified as an example of Truth in Television due to the fact that diaphragms are not as reliable as other methods of birth control.

In Match Point, Villain Protagonist Chris Wilton has trouble conceiving with his wife, but knocks up his mistress pretty much immediately, the irony of which he notes ruefully. After killing the mistress to keep things quiet, his wife finally gets pregnant.

Obvious Child. The protagonist has a drunken one-night stand with a stranger after being dumped by her boyfriend and gets knocked up. The rest of the film is about her finding the father, starting a relationship with him, and getting an abortion.

George knocks up Alice after one encounter in A Place in the Sun. This is disastrous, as not only will it lose him his job (fraternization is forbidden at the factory), it will kill his budding romance with gorgeous, rich society girl Angela and eventually leads to the demise of both George and Alice.

Dr. Elizabeth Shaw from Prometheus is unable to conceive a child, and late one night gets freaky with her husband after he has been unknowingly infected with an alien mutagen. She ends up conceiving, but the child... well, cross Starfish Alien with Enfant Terrible and you've got a start.

Raising Arizona uses this as the crux of its plot, where a married couple can neither conceive (because the wife is infertile) nor adopt (because the husband has a shaky, criminal history), so instead they opt to kidnap one of the recently-born Arizona quintuplets, since the father was quoted in the media as saying they had more children than they could handle.

This particularly fits the trope because the wife is absolutely desperate to have a child. When she finds out she can't, she's so depressed she quits the police force.

School Waltz: Zolya sneaks Gosha into her family's apartment for some post-graduation sex. Naturally, she turns up pregnant. A shocked Gosha dumps her.

Secrets & Lies: Cynthia had two unplanned pregnancies, while Maurice and Monica tried to have kids for 15 years with no success.

Claudia desperately wants a child in Snow White: A Tale of Terror, but she only carries to term/gets pregnant (the film doesn't specify which) one time in nine years. The baby doesn't live.

Something Wicked: Susan and Bill are trying to start a family, but she can't get pregnant, which causes a rift in their marriage.

What to Expect When You're Expecting: After deciding to take a break from years of trying to conceive, one of the couples conceives during a drunken romp in the bushes. Keep in mind that she was drinking because they had decided to take a break and therefore she no longer needed to abstain from alcohol. They are a little annoyed when his father and his younger wife managed to get pregnant with no trouble at all.

Surprisingly averted with another couple who has struggled with infertility for years and finally decided to adopt. At no time does she finally conceive naturally.

Two women get pregnant accidentally, one with her new boyfriend and one during a one night stand. The latter was heartbroken when she lost her child due to miscarriage.

Where Are My Children?: Poor Lillian gets knocked up after having sex once, much to her horror. Mrs. Walton aborts three pregnancies, only to find when she changes her mind that those abortions robbed her of the chance to have any other children.

In Written on the Wind, Kyle really wants children, so naturally he has fertility problems. When Lucy eventually gets pregnant, he's unsure whether he's really the father, and when he subsequently hits her in a jealous rage, she has a miscarriage.

Literature

Mostly averted in A Brother's Price, as women who don't want to get pregnant usually will just take a female lover or be celibate. Men have Gender Rarity Value, and women who do have intercourse with men do so with the intent to get pregnant. However, it seems that Eldest Whistler got pregnant before getting engaged, or at least this could be suspected. Not played for drama, as she marries the man anyway. Played straight (justified) for most families who desire a boy child, though, as sperm quality is low, and male babies are frequently stillborn.

Khaled Hosseini is very fond of his trope; he mainly does it to challenge the traditional, "childbearing" role of a woman in society.

In The Kite Runner, Amir's wife is infertile, and Amir believes that his inability to have a biological son is Allah's way of punishing him for refusing to report his best friend Hassan's rape.

In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam is unable to have a child, leading to her abusive husband to favor his fertile second wife, Laila.

In And the Mountains Echoed, Nila is infertile as well and essentially allows the kidnap of Pari so that she and her husband would remain respected in Afghan society. Pari, on the other hand, has an unintended child with her husband; Nila's jealousy toward her adoptive daughter's fertility leads her to commit suicide.

Aunt Sissy in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn wants a child more than anything, but all her pregnancies result in stillbirth. She finally fakes a pregnancy and adopts the child of an unwed Italian girl, and about a year later becomes pregnant for real and has a healthy baby boy.

A Soldier of the Great War references this trope. A young boy is talking to the protagonist about various fertility superstitions he's heard about. Alessandro tells him that the real rule is "Once if you're not married; a thousand times if you are."

Sonea in The Black Magician Trilogy falls under this trope from the virgin side of things. She manages to get pregnant while in the very stressful situation of travelling into exile into a hostile land filled with ruthless stronger magicians, who are hunting them (her and the teacher) as a prelude to the invasion the country they've just been exiled from. High stress isn't usually conducive to fertility.

Shelena and her partner in Loyal Enemies have sex exactly once, but when she's leaving immediately after, she seems confident that she's pregnant. Justified as Shelena is a werewolf and in heat on that day. The sequel novella reveals that they indeed have a child.

The Dora Wilk Series implies that this is true for all angels: as a species, they are so absurdly fertile that many of them end up having a child after their first sex, and nothing helps them in that regard. Defied, though, with the main character: as a fertility witch, she can reduce her chances of getting pregnant to zero.

A major part of Gordie's character in "The Body" (the Stephen King novella that later became the film Stand by Me): his late brother Denny was born after a series of miscarriages and stillbirths and regarded as a gift from God, while he came along ten years later, when his parents didn't want another child.

Played with in Ciem: Vigilante Centipede in a few parts, but played totally straight most of the time. Candi seduces Donte twice in the hopes of them having a baby. And nothing happens either time. After Donte's (fake) death, Candi meets Denny. They try to restrain themselves at first but eventually succumb. They have sex numerous times without incident. Then, after tricking Gunner in a fight to kill himself by falling on his own knife, Candi has sex with Denny again. And this time, gets pregnant. By that point, she wanted a child, but was not amused with the timing. After Denny is Killed Off for Real, she rescues Donte and reconciles with him. Several times they try to get pregnant, with no success. It's when Candi no longer cares that she actually ends up conceiving Frank.

Miriam never aimed to get pregnant at all. But in a subversion, took a few hundred bouts of unprotected sex (she never once used protection with any of her seven partners in her lifetime) before conceiving Steve's child.

Marina never really thought through the consequences either; just acted on a mad impulse. Still, it took her first time with guy #17 before she got pregnant.

Happens to Detritus and Ruby as their relationship is developed through the Discworld series. Vimes noted that their marriage was happy but childless. They do, however, adopt Brick later in Thud.

In Codex Alera, Amara fears that she is infertile because she was 'blighted' (A potentially lethal disease that renders the majority of its female survivors infertile) in her youth. Bernard, her husband, points out that not every blighted woman is infertile, so they resolve to keep trying until they get the child they desperately want (Repeatedly, and with much enthusiasm). After years of (Very enjoyable) efforts, Amara finally resolves herself to never being a biological mother and instead focuses on caring for the orphaned children whose parents were killed in the recent fighting. Almost as soon as she accepts this, she is cured of her infertility and gets pregnant.

In Katherine Kerr's Deverry Cycle, the Maelwaedd clan has something of a succession crisis looming. Rhys is the ruler and needs an heir. He's been married for years and his wife hasn't given him any children at all. His brother Rhodry isn't so burdened, has a way with the ladies, and accidentally gets a servant girl pregnant. Rhys, meanwhile, is forced by politics to cast off his wife for one who isn't barren and his cast-off wife is given to a widower with so many children, he needs a wife to mother them but doesn't need any more heirs. Within a year, Rhys's cast-off wife is pregnant and giving birth, causing everyone to realise that the infertile one is actually Rhys (nobles start whiling away their time by placing bets as to whether his second wife will ever get pregnant). Rhys tries to solve this problem by adopting Rhodry's illegitimate child as his legal heir, but he dies before he can go beyond considering it as a hypothetical solution.

In Gone, Diana becomes pregnant quickly once she and Caine get down to it, even though not long before that she was very badly starved, which should have had some kind of effect of her fertility/menstrual cycles (it should have stopped them).

In Gone with the Wind, the one time Scarlett is genuinely happy to be pregnant, she miscarries.

Justified in The Last Herald-Mage trilogy, during the Heir Club for Men B-plot. Shavri gets pregnant by Vanyel on the first try, but as a Healer, she can make darn sure everything goes together right at an egg-and-sperm level on the first try.

In The Mists of Avalon, Gwenhwyfar desperately wants to bear Arthur's child, but instead has miscarriage after miscarriage to the point where Arthur tells her to sleep with Lancelet in the hopes that he might be able to get her pregnant. Morgaine, on the other hand, gets pregnant with Gwydion (Mordred) the first time she ever has sex.

Similarly, The Once and Future King has Guenever badly wanting a baby to no avail. Both of her lovers father children by other women, which she finds especially aggravating in the case of Lancelot and Elaine.

The heroine of Francine Rivers Redeeming Love is revealed to have been surgically sterilized as a teenager right after her unwitting husband announces he is looking forward to having children almost more than anything else. This trope then gets jerked around a lot, as Angel pulls an I Want My Beloved to Be Happy and leaves Michael, hoping hell marry someone who can defy this trope, and then eventually comes back and in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue is revealed to have had four children with Michael despite having been barren.

In The Secret of Platform 13,Mrs. Trottle tries for a long time to have a child, and after finding out there's a waiting list for adoptions (don't these people know who she is!), she winds up stealing a baby (the prince of a magic island, though she doesn't know that) to pass off as her own. She finds out she's pregnant soon after the kidnapping and passes the baby off on her servant to raise, causing confusion when the prince's subjects come to rescue him.

Despite every other male dragon being able to easily sire eggs with female dragons, even those of other breeds, the titular character, Temeraire, notices that despite mating with many dragonesses, and the British government's high hopes he will sire offspring with the "divine wind", he seems infertile.

In Throne of Jade, it is also noted that Celestials, like Temeraire, are so closely related that they do not mate with one another; instead, they mate with Imperial dragons to produce Celestial eggs. Occasionally, the mating of two Imperials also results in a Celestial. Because of this interbreeding, Celestials are very similar in appearance to Imperials and share many common traits. It is not known whether Celestial/Imperial matings may produce Imperials, or even if Celestial/other breed matings may produce hybrid breeds, or are even viable in terms of fertility.

In Twilight, Rosalie and Esme can't ever have kids and yet they really, really want them. Bella, who isn't trying to have kids and in fact isn't even thinking about them, gets pregnant the very first time she and Edward have sex, despite being explicitly incapable of it. Justified if (as they imply) a female vampire can't get pregnant, but a male vampire can get someone else pregnant.

Averted in Lois McMaster Bujold's novel Barrayar. Cordelia, who's actually trying to have a baby with her husband, gets pregnant first go, while her friend Drou, in the midst of a pregnancy scare after an ill-judged encounter, is not. And then the real plot starts. Growing up, Miles is uncomfortably aware that his parents chose not to have more children, to protect their "mutie" son from being shunted aside.

Now, family size; that was the real, secret, wicked fascination of Barrayar. There were no legal limits here, no certificates to be earned, no third-child variances to be scrimped for; no rules, in fact, at all. She'd seen a woman on the street with not three but four children in tow, and no one had even started. Cordelia had upped her own imagined brood from two to three, and felt deliciously sinful, till she'd met a woman with ten. Four, maybe? Six?

Worldwar: Upsetting the Balance: Sam Yeager and his new bride, Barbara, have sex without protection exactly once; on their wedding night. The once was all it took.

Federico García Lorca's Yerma is mainly about this topic: a woman who wants a child but can't get pregnant no matter what.

In Zel, a Twice-Told Tale of "Rapunzel", we get to learn about the witch's backstory and it turns out that she was a barren woman who desperately wanted a child of her own and turned her back on God to make a Deal with the Devil after she came to the conclusion that a truly good God wouldn't have inflicted an infertile woman with such an unbearable desire to have children. This is also what eventually drives her to lock up Zel in a tower when she fears that Zel's budding love for a boy might cause her to leave her one day.

In The Kingdom of Little Wounds, Ava and Midi are both fertile women, and they really wish they weren't. Both women get pregnant when they have no desire to, and Midi stays pregnant no matter how hard she tries to abort.

In Dragonriders of Pern, Lessa nearly dies after giving birth to her only son, F'lessan, and has no luck conceiving more children despite how badly she wants more kids. Kylara, on the other hand, has no trouble conceiving and bearing children, and hates it - so much so that after five babies, she starts using trips between as birth control. In a later volume, Mirrim has trouble not conceiving but carrying, and it's because she's been going between before she learns she's pregnant; the dolphins, however, are able to identify a pregnant woman and this enables her to protect her unborn child.

Dark Heart: Kail and Shial have sex just once, and she gets pregnant despite her wishes to the contrary.

Used in Impossible. As a part of a family curse, the Scarborough women end up pregnant at seventeen whether they want to or not. And it's not a magical pregnancy, either, since both Miranda and Lucy conceive when Padraig manipulates them into having sex when it looks like they won't of their own free will (and in Lucy's case, it's hinted that he tampered with the morning-after pill she was given). Meanwhile, it's mentioned that Soledad and Leo wanted a child of their own but were unable to conceive, which is one of the reasons Miranda decides to have them take care of her daughter when she fails her tasks and goes insane. It's subverted in Unthinkable when Fenella tells the circumstances behind her own pregnancy. She slept with her fiance, hoping that getting pregnant would dissuade Padraig from romantically pursuing her. She succeeds, but it doesn't protect her the way she thought it would.

In Newes from the Dead, Anne is raped by the son of her employers six times, spaced of a larger period of time, and ends up pregnant. A later attempt at abortion fails.

In Addicted, Rose and Lily, neither of whom were trying for a baby or even wanted one, got pregnant within two weeks of each other. In "Long Way Down", Daisy desperately wants a child, and it takes months before she finally gets pregnant.

Cutler Series: Dawn unintentionally conceives her first child Christie during her affair with her adult vocal coach in Secrets of the Morning. In Twilight's Child, her second pregnancy ends in a miscarriage (courtesy of Clara Sue), and she spends almost the rest of the book unable to conceive due to her mental state, despite both herself and Jimmy desperately wanting a child. It isn't until the end that she finally gets pregnant, and Midnight Whispers reveals that she successfully carries a son.

Whats Bred In The Bone. Marie Therese, as a teenager, has sex with a hotel footman after her debut (possibly in ignorance of the potential consequences). Since the family is Catholic, of course, they wouldn't dream of an abortion, which was illegal at the time anyway... but lots of scalding hot baths, many doses of castor oil, and large quantities of gin are attempted. None of them work, and Marie Therese marries Francis Cornish Sr. to cover up the scandal.

In Colby Rodowsky's Lucy Peale, teenage Lucy becomes pregnant after one night of non-consensual sex with a boy who handed her a Coke mixed with beer.

Being a kid's series, it's never explicitly discussed; however, a few characters in Warrior Cats are implied to have had kits after only mating once or twice. This is especially troublesome as a few of these are cross-Clan couplings.

Discussed in the latter half of The Sapphire Rose, the third part of the Elenium trilogy. The Child-Goddess Aphrael has to explain a few things to Sparhawk, namely that the poison which afflicted Queen Ehlana (Sparhawk's wife) for the first two books left her infertile, so as much as she and Sparhawk want children, it would be impossible. Aphrael, who loves them, therefore took it upon herself to spend nine months in Ehlana's womb and become their daughter, Princess Danae. This isn't exactly the weirdest thing to happen in Sparhawk's life up to this point, although it comes close, and once he wraps his head around it he takes it pretty well for the most part.

Kris Longknife: Kris has a Surprise Pregnancy in Unrelenting despite having recently replaced her contraceptive implant. Or rather, because of: a disgruntled supply noncom had sabotaged a shipment of implants due to disagreeing with Kris having relaxed the regs on fraternization, leading to over seventy unplanned pregnancies and the petty officer getting a dishonorable discharge and sentenced to the manure works.

In the Outlander series, Brianna has sex exactly twice (once losing her virginity to her new husband and once by rape) and then finds out she's pregnant. This is maximum Rule of Drama because she then cannot be sure who fathered the child, and having a baby may trap her in the past.

Live-Action TV

On 3rd Rock from the Sun, Vicki and Harry go to a doctor when they can't seem to have a baby. Subverted in that they had only been trying for a month.

Vicki: Well, it's not like we've been doing anything else.

All My Children's Edmund and Maria struggled to conceive via in vitro fertilization for roughly a year, then struggle to adopt; just as everything seems to be settled, the birth mother changes her mind. Within a few months, both situations do a complete 180. The birth mother gives them her baby after all, and Maria finally conceives naturally.

Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: It's established that vampires cannot have kids. When Angel and Darla—both vampires—have sex, however, she winds up pregnant, with some kind of magic preventing her from aborting. Weirder still, the child turns out to be at least Ambiguously Human. It's eventually revealed that Jasmine, a Power That Was, arranged this to happen as part of her master plan.

Both sides are featured in Boardwalk Empire. On the one hand, Rose Van Alden, who wants a child more than anything in the world and practically considers sex a chore to get that, can't conceive. Her husband Nelson is not so thrilled about having children himself but knocks up Lucy during his first and only one-night stand. Meanwhile, Lucy is advised to stop using birth control in order to secure Nucky for herself but only gets pregnant after he has abandoned her.

The Bold and the Beautiful Ridge and Taylor fail to conceive despite being Insatiable Newlyweds and their doctors assuring them that they are both fertile. She finally does get pregnant years later, after she's been presumed dead and he's married someone else.

Brothers and Sisters: Given the fecundity of their parents, the Walker kids seem to have an unusual amount of fertility problems, Sarah being the sole exception.

Tommy and his wife Julia try to have a baby, but it ultimately turns out that Tommy is sterile. Julia eventually conceives using sperm donated by Kevin and Justin. But when she gives birth to twins, one dies and the other nearly does as well.

Kitty is likewise unable to conceive with Robert, even after undergoing fertility treatments. They end up adopting a baby boy. After Robert's death, and despite having undergone treatment for Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, Kitty later becomes pregnant by her much younger boyfriend Seth. The ultimate fate of this pregnancy is unknown, as the series was Cut Short.

Kevin and Scotty hire a friend to be a surrogate. They start running into problems like having difficulty with conception and eventual miscarriage. They then give up on that idea and adopt a 9-year-old girl, with whom they are happy. Later, they learn that their surrogate was lying about the miscarriage and took the baby for herself. So they get the baby back, but then their adopted daughter's homophobic brother who abandoned her wants to take her away from them. He fails.

While never directly stated onscreen, evidence suggests that Justin may also be sterile or have defective sperm. Despite years of casual sex, often influenced by drugs and alcohol, with many women, he has seemingly never fathered any children. The fact that Tommy and Julia's daughter Elizabeth is confirmed to be Kevin's biological child seems to support this. Justin later fathers a child on Rebecca, but she miscarries.

Played with in Castle. In season five's Christmas Episode, Kevin Ryan and wife Jenny decide to have a kid. Several episodes later Ryan shows up looking rather haggard from... repeated attempts, and in a late-season episode, they go to see a fertility doctor for tests only to have it turn out they wasted their money because they already succeeded.

After a year of marriage, Piper and Leo are trying to get pregnant, and Piper finds out that the physical toll of demon-fighting has made it "difficult if not impossible" for her to get pregnant. Meanwhile, Phoebe has been married for about a month and finds out that she's pregnant, despite not wanting children. (In this case, though, her husband — secretly the Big Bad — was trying to have a kid without her realizing it.) Phoebe's fear of telling Piper turns into a Milholland Relationship Moment, and long story short, Phoebe's Fetus Terrible explodes and Piper winds up pregnant. (In fact, she eventually has two more kids, and the second, at least, is known to be an "accident.")

When the sisters traveled back in time to the 1970s, they discovered that their mother was told she wouldn't be able to conceive again after Piper. Obviously, that wasn't true. It became almost comical when backstage shenanigans necessitated revealing that Patty had a fourth child.

Phoebe somehow found herself on both sides of this simultaneously in later seasons. After having had a pair of premonitions of herself as a mother, her major motivation is ensuring that they come true. She's constantly consulting various auguring methods and charts to see whether she's passed the conception date, and she actually lost her active powers via abusing them so as to not waste time with a Romantic False Lead and find the child's father faster. But when she discovers she's pregnant in season 8, it's just after she's broken up with a man she accidentally married while using a magical fake identity (it's a long story), so it's still far from good news. Then it turns out that it was a false positive, so she goes right back to her star charts.

Coupling: in the season finale, Susan is desperate to conceive but is told the chances are low, while Sally has a pregnancy scare when she doesn't want a baby. Subverted as Susan finds out at the last minute that she's pregnant, and Sally isn't (Jane was also involved in the test mix-up and she was not pregnant).

On Desperate Housewives, Gabrielle took a tumble down the stairs a few minutes after she accepted her pregnancy. When she later decided she wanted to try to have a baby, "complications" from the fall made her unable to do it the old-fashioned way. She and Carlos attempted to adopt a baby but were thwarted when an employee of the agency blabbed Gabrielle's history of statutory rape and Carlos' slave labor charges. They managed to adopt a child through the services of a private adoption lawyer but the biological mother had a change of heart and took the child back. Finally, they used a surrogate, and nine months later discovered there had been an embryo mix-up and the baby belonged to someone else.

In Season 5 we find out Gabby had two miracle pregnancies... right after her husband went blind and they lost all their money.

Lynette gets pregnant at the end of Season 5, despite having just undergone chemo and being, judging by the age of her older children, well in her forties. Well, at least it gave occasion to one of the best lines of the season: "Are you sure it's not cancer?"

In an episode of Dharma & Greg, Dharma became convinced that she and Greg were about to have a baby after seeing a vision. They tried to have a baby for a long time, using various methods, but, in the end, it was Dharma's middle-aged mother who became pregnant. Dharma explained that her vision was correct, but that she just misplaced its womb.

Played for drama on the Doctor Who episode "Asylum of the Daleks". Due to her ordeal at Demon's Run, Amy learned that she couldn't have any more children. Knowing that Rory had always wanted children of his own, Amy decided to divorce him in the hopes that he could start over with someone who could give him the family she couldn't. "I didn't kick you out, Rory, I gave you up!" Amy and Rory are a pretty good example of this trope since they (presumably) weren't trying to have kids when Amy got pregnant with Melody, but now, thanks to the events on Demon's Run, they wouldn't be able to have kids even if they wanted to (as Rory apparently does).

Rampant on Downton Abbey. The only woman on the show who actually gets pregnant without difficulty when she wants to is Sybil, and she ends up dying as a result.

The second season presents with the housemaid Ethel, who has a few dalliances with an officer convalescing at Downton, resulting in her pregnancy.

The third season gives us Matthew and Mary, married and trying, and failing. They both secretly go to a fertility specialist about it in London and run into each other there.

In the fourth season, Edith spends one night with the man she's planning on marrying before he goes off to Germany to divorce his first wife and gets killed in the Beer Hall Putsch, and ends up with an illegitimate daughter.

The fifth season reveals that Anna and Bates have been trying unsuccessfully to have children for some time, leading to a sustained misunderstanding when Bates discovers the birth control paraphernalia that Anna has been hiding for Mary. (A trip to the same fertility specialist Matthew and Mary visit finally allows her to carry a child to term.)

There are two notable subversions in Season 4, however. The first is in the case of Anna's rape. Following it, Mrs. Hughes and Anna worry about the possibility of Anna becoming pregnant, with a very upset Anna threatening to kill herself if it turns out to be the case. It isn't. The second is when Edna gets Tom drunk and tries to get him to marry her by heavily implying that she's pregnant with his child and he must marry her to take responsibility. Tom very nearly gives in, until Mrs. Hughes investigates the matter and finds a book on birth control in Edna's room. Between that and the fact that Edna wouldn't want to be pregnant until knowing for certain if Tom was going to marry her, she concludes that Edna ensured she didn't get pregnant that night and was planning to find some other man to knock her up once Tom agreed. (After the whole thing was over, Mrs. Hughes then told Tom that even if Edna was pregnant, it would have been way too early even for her to know.)

The titular character fears she's too old to conceive when she realizes that, despite she and Sully being Insatiable Newlyweds, she hasn't. Sure enough, upon going to another doctor for an evaluation, it turns out she's pregnant.

Quinn's best friend Dorothy stops getting her period and assumes she's pregnant when it turns out that menopause is starting.

May Wright, one of EastEnders' most popular villains, was a perfectly nice doctor who miscarried her child and was rendered infertile as a result. Not even repeated fertility treatments could work. This woman was as barren as a brick wall. This tipped her off the Despair Event Horizon and becoming an Axe-CrazyManipulative Bitch who conspired to steal her husband's lovers baby in order to replace her own. After kidnapping Dawn and trying to force a Cesarean on her, chasing after her while she escaped screaming "I WANT MY BABY!", trying to steal the baby from the hospital after Dawn gave birth, getting arrested, being released, trying to steal the baby again, breaking Dawn's ankle and chopping down a door with a crowbar, Jack Nicholson-style, she realised that she wasn't getting her hands on this baby. She just gave up and committed suicide. The actress who played her must have been picking scenery out of her teeth for months.

In an episode of Flashpoint, one couple desperately wanting a baby simply couldn't and the stress of it caused the husband to cheat and sleep with an ex-girlfriend, who did become pregnant.

Subverted in Frasier, when Niles and Daphne are trying to have a child. Niles finds out that he has lethargic sperm and goes through a whole rigmarole of ridiculous procedures to increase chances of impregnating Daphne. He then finds out that she is already pregnant.

Played straight, however, with Roz, who gets pregnant even though she doesn't want to and has been using birth control.

Roz: The best birth control is only 99% effective. I can't beat those odds.

Very much in effect in Friends: There are a lot of accidental and engineered pregnancies, but the two couples that desperately wanted children are the ones that are unable to conceive naturally.

It's only after Ross has divorced his wife, who had found out she was gay, that they both learn she's pregnant from one last fling they'd had at the end of their marriage. This is after them having been together for seven years (four years of which were married) without any baby coming along.

Frank Jr. and Alice desperately want children, but can't, so they blindside Phoebe by asking her to be their surrogate. Only after she agrees does she learn how low the success rate actually is and that her brother only has one shot at this because it's so expensive. She ends up pregnant far faster than medical science predicted and with three of the five embryos that were implanted.

Rachel did have a plan that involved meeting the right guy, dating him, getting engaged and then being married for a healthy period of time before having children. It didn't work out that way, and she became pregnant after a one-night stand with Ross just before Chandler and Monica's wedding. They'd even taken precautions, too.

Monica was the one member of the gang who had wanted children from the earliest episodes and even lost one serious relationship because of her desire for children and her (older) partner's desire not to have any more. However, after she learns Chandler's more than ready to have children with her, they discover they each have fertility problems and that it'll be very unlikely that they could ever conceive naturally, making them the second couple that wants children but can't have them. They eventually adopt twins; the producers also revealed they view the couple as having a biological child post-show.

Janice's first husband is not much of a family man at all but has no trouble having children with Janice. Janice's second husband, however, is a much better family man and desperately wants children, but has fertility issues, resulting in them needing medical help each time they want to have a child.

Ross and Monica's parents were told they were incapable of having children - then Ross came along. It's cited as the reason for Monica being The Un-Favourite. Ross was the miracle baby, while Monica was just another birth.

Glee features Terri, who is desperate for a baby yet can't get pregnant. Meanwhile, the religious celibacy club president Quinn cheats on her boyfriend and has sex with his best friend once and ends up pregnant. The two stories then overlap as not only do both women pull The Baby Trap on their respective men but Terri is attempting to secretly adopt from Quinn.

On the other end of the scale it is a miracle that Brittanyhasn't become pregnant. She has claimed to have had sex with almost every guy in the school and yet she thinks using protection means having a burglar alarm and additionally she still thinks babies come from the stork.

There's also Shelby Corcoran, who after giving Rachel up for adoption is told she can no longer have children. She finds her way around it by adopting Quinn's daughter.

Addison cheats on her husband with Sloan, gets pregnant, aborts, and then when she tries to have a baby on her own finds out she's barren.

Cristina gets pregnant by accident; it turns out to be ectopic and she miscarries before she can abort.

Bailey, after 7 years of trying, gets pregnant right when she's about to become an attending.

Adele gets pregnant at age 50 while separated from her husband, only to miscarry once they've reconciled.

Callie and George briefly talk about trying to have a baby which doesn't happen. Callie gets pregnant after sleeping with her best friend Sloan after a breakup with her girlfriend. Callie gets back together with Arizona and the three raise the baby together.

Sloan knocked up some chick when he was young and dumb and his teenage daughter shows up in season six, also knocked up.

Meredith gets pregnant, and though she is happy about it, she was on birth control... but then miscarries. She then spends all of season 7 trying to get pregnant, but she doesn't so they adopt a baby in season 8. The next season her and Derek are happy with Zola, only for her to get pregnant again.

And then Cristina gets knocked up, AGAIN, despite only having one functional fallopian tube, and desperately never wanting a child. She goes through with the abortion this time.

Lampshaded by Meredith when April, who had until recently been a virgin, had a pregnancy scare:

"Plans never work out the way you think they're going to. Especially with babies. You try and try to get pregnant, you can't. And then a baby comes when you least expect it, probably because you didn't plan it."

April herself ended up having a baby boy (with Jackson), who died at birth from brittle bone disease. Then, the day she finalized her divorce with Jackson, April found out she was pregnant again. This child, a girl, luckily survived.

Gender-flipped with Owen, who always wanted children but several circumstances prevented this. Eventually, by the time he was in the process of adopting a boy, Owen discovered that his ex Teddy was pregnant with his child.

Played with in Hex: Cassie falls pregnant to Azazeal while under his influence. Upon discovering that she's pregnant, she decides to abort it. The baby survives and grows to adulthood, thanks to the efforts of the father.

Cuddy from House went to great lengths to get pregnant. When that doesn't work out, she tries to adopt which doesn't work out either, at least at first.

Averted in How I Met Your Mother. In Season 4, Marshall and Lily decide that the time just isn't right for the two of them to have a baby, and they actually make it stick; Lily doesn't get pregnant. What makes it notable is that Alyson Hannigan, the actress who plays Lily, was pregnant throughout the season, but the writers still passed on the chance to write it into the story.

In an unbelievable coincidence, Cobie Smulders (who plays Robin) was also pregnant at the same time, and her character also had no desire for kids. Which makes this a Double Aversion for the writers who actually pulled it off.

Played straight in season six, where Lily and Marshall have decided that they want a baby and are having trouble conceiving. The trope is parodied initially, though; the first time they go to a fertility specialist, it's revealed that they've only been trying for six days. Subverted as of "Bad News." Marshall and Lily both learn that they are fertile. They've just had bad luck so far. (Lily becomes pregnant shortly afterwards.)

Subverted in season 7 when Robin, who absolutely despises kids, gets a pregnancy scare only to find out that not only is it a false positive, she's infertile. She has no idea how to react to it, because she's never wanted kids, ever, but the knowledge that she can't have them, period, makes her realize that she might've wanted them someday, but now that choice has been taken from her and she'll never, ever be able to change her mind. It's made even worse when she's trying to convince herself that infertility is a good thing, now she'll never have to worry, she has no right to be sad because she never wanted kids in the first place, she's glad her and Barney's beautiful future kids that she's been imagining telling the story of how she met their father to aren't real...

Barney's stance on children wavers throughout the series, but overall he is against fatherhood. During the entire run of the series, he seduces countless women and none of them get pregnant... until the series finale, set over multiple years, where he accidentally gets a woman pregnant and is horrified. However, soon after his daughter Ellie is born, he completely falls in love with the baby upon holding her in his arms for the first time.

Carrie and Doug's difficulties in having a baby were used occasionally on The King of Queens. One two-part episode had Carrie get pregnant, only to suffer a miscarriage. In the Grand Finale they end up adopting, only to find out that they are having one of their own as well.

This appears to be law #1 on Lost's island. Pregnancy is a death sentence for mother and baby, but normal sperm count is magnified by five.

Also seen in flashbacks. Sun and Jin desperately want a baby, and can't conceive. Claire is on the pill and gets pregnant.

Mad Men uses this both ways with the same character: Pete unknowingly knocks up Peggy, who in turn is in very deep psychological denial about her pregnancy (and was on birth control), but takes years to do the same to his wife. Not only does she want a baby, but her father also demands a grandchild in return for helping Pete's business. They finally have a daughter, Tammy, in season four.

Again played two ways with Joan, who tries for months to get pregnant with her husband's child, worrying that past abortions have possibly made her infertile, then becomes pregnant with Roger's on their one-night stand (and her only episode of infidelity).

Betty discovers she's pregnant while estranged from Don and considers aborting. They reconcile, but not much later they split up for good, and she's holding the baby on the plane as she and her second-husband-to-be fly to Reno to obtain the divorce.

Through flashbacks, we find out that Son of a Whore Don was only taken in by his father's wife because all of her pregnancies had ended in stillbirths and she desperately wanted a child. She had a son of her own about ten years later.

Subverted in Mama's Family, where Vinton and Naomi had reached the end of their rope (turned down for adoption, Vinton's low sperm count) and were about to move away from Thelma's house after a nasty row, only to find out Naomi was pregnant after all.

Happens on Martin. His girlfriend Gina misses her period and Hilarity Ensues as they and their friends scramble about getting her tested for pregnancy and if they're ready for a baby. Just when Martin and Gina warm up to the idea of having a child, it turns out she wasn't pregnant after all.

Played straight on Merlin. Ygraine is desperate to give Uther an heir but is unable to do so. She gets so desperate that she turns to magic — or Uther gets so desperate that they do, we don't know for sure — and though she gets pregnant, she dies giving birth.

Modern Family presents an interesting variation: in Season 3 Mitchell and Cameron, a gay couple who already have one adopted daughter, have decided to try for a son through various means (several variations on adoption, surrogacy, etc.) only to see every attempt fall through in increasingly heartbreaking ways. Meanwhile, Mitchell's step-mother Gloria, in her late thirties/early forties, becomes pregnant by her sixty-something husband: a pregnancy they were definitely not planning, and which comes as a bit of shock to the whole family.

Implied to have been the case with Jessica and her late husband Frank on Murder, She Wrote. In the pilot, Jessica explains her childlessness to a new suitor by saying "We were never blessed in that way."

This is really played up in the Korean DramaOjakgyo Brothers. Cha Soo Young had surgery that removed one ovary completely and partially removed the other, yet became pregnant by a one-night-stand with her coworker.

On One Life to Live, Happily Married couple Andrew and Cassie are elated to be having a baby boy; unfortunately, a tumble down some stairs causes Cassie to miscarry, and she's unable to get pregnant again. They're later able to adopt the son of an unwed teenager, although their marriage eventually crumbles nevertheless.

On One Tree Hill, Brooke Davis wants to be a mother, but her foster daughter leaves her, and she ultimately discovers she is infertile. She ends up having twins anyway.

Averted on Orphan Black. Gracie is subjected to Medical Rape and Impregnate, but she ends up having a miscarriage. Later it's revealed that she contracted a pathogen from her husband which renders infected women infertile. When she learns this, she admits that it doesn't bother her because she never wanted kids anyway.

Zig-zagged in the Season 5 finale of Parks and Recreation. Andy is trying to figure out which of the women in the office is pregnant. The first one he rules out is Ann, who ends up helping him "investigate" the other women. Ann is, of course, the one who's pregnant.

Played With in Season 6, as well. Leslie and Ben back-and-forth a lot on the issue of having kids after getting married, in part because they're both very career-minded and a little on the older side (already in their late thirties). Leslie then discovers she's gotten pregnant accidentally and struggles with how to break it to Ben - who, fortunately, had that very day decided once and for all that he wanted to be a father. They're both thrilled until it turns out she's pregnant with triplets, making their prospects for an easy "later-in-life" pregnancy and juggling their careers with parenting literally three times harder.

Francis and Mary try for a baby multiple times with no luck. Olivia desperately tries to conceive with Francis in the hopes of him marrying her or keeping her around as his mistress. Lola and Francis have sex once and end up pregnant with a baby neither wants.

Catherine tried desperately for years to have a baby with Henry, up to using several crazy medicinal treatments. They ended up having several children, but at the cost of their once loving marriage. Meanwhile, Catherine has an affair and ends up pregnant with the other man's child (long before she has one of Henry's) and has to secretly give the baby up.

Played straight on Rules of Engagement with Jeff and Audrey not only unable to have children but having major trouble with surrogates.

Very much in force in Saving Hope. Both Maggie and Alex get pregnant even though they definitely do not want kids (at least, not yet). Maggie's leads to a Convenient Miscarriage; Alex decides to carry the baby to term and keep it (with plenty of Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe hijinks.) On the flip side, Dawn decides she wants to have a baby (with Charlie) and remains completely convinced that she will have no trouble conceiving even though she's past optimum child-bearing age. Dawn is completely crushed when the OB tells her that her eggs are not viable.

Played hilariously straight on Scrubs, where J.D. accidentally impregnated his girlfriend without even having sex with her (he didn't have a condom, and he didn't want to get her pregnant), Jordan and Dr. Cox had Jack with their relationship being little more than a booty call, and Jennifer Dylan after Dr. Cox had two vasectomies. Turk and Carla, on the other hand, had to both have fertility tests and counseling before they finally had Izzy.

In Sex and the City, Charlotte, who is the character who's the most excited about the idea of marriage and family, turns out to have trouble conceiving. Miranda, who's more lukewarm on the subject, suffers an unplanned pregnancy. What's more, Miranda had a lazy ovary and the man who impregnated her had lost one testicle to cancer!

Charlotte does get pregnant in The Movie, though, as an example of "getting pregnant once you stop trying."

Also averted with Samantha, who remains adamant that she doesn't want children throughout the series and movie, and doesn't have any.

On Sisters, youngest sister Frankie and her husband struggle to conceive for months before finally realizing that it isn't going to happen the natural way. To that end, all of the other sisters volunteer to be a surrogate mother for her. When the one she chooses is about halfway through the pregnancy, she begins to suspect that she herself has finally conceived after all, only for it to turn out that she hasn't.

Used multiple times in Six Feet Under. Spoilers ahoy: Lisa becomes pregnant with Nate's child after a one-night stand; she decides to keep the baby, which causes Nate much angst. After Nate and Brenda decide to get married, Brenda becomes pregnant only to have a miscarriage the day before the wedding. They conceive again but only after their marriage has begun to show signs of strain. Claire gets pregnant by her boyfriend but only finds out after they break up; she chooses to abort, and during a hallucinatory trip to the land of the dead sees the baby in Lisa's arms and asks her to take care of him.

In Season 2, Martha gets pregnant, thanks to Clark's ship (or rather, AI!Jor-El) healing her. Considering the AI's general personality and worldview combined with its very occasional Pet the Dog habits, it is more than likely that it facilitated this as mixture of thanks to the Kents for raising Clark and in order to give them a replacement for Clark, allowing it to take him away to be trained. And no, it doesn't generally have much of a grasp on human nature. In any case, Status Quo Is God and Clark's attempt to destroy the ship ends up causing Martha to miscarry.

South of Nowhere has Chelsea getting pregnant to Clay, and then deciding that she can't go through with an abortion. She later loses the baby in a car accident.

St. Elsewhere There's a story arc about a married couple going through in-vitro fertilization at the hospital; at the same time, two mentally disabled patients experiment with sex once, and the girl conceives. The TV Guide description of the episode summarizes this trope: "The rabbit dies for the wrong woman."

On Spartacus: Blood and Sand and Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, Lucretia tries for years to provide her husband Batiatus with an heir, even resorting to adultery with one of his gladiators due to the belief that a Gaul's seed was extraordinarily potent. Despite regularly having sex with both men and undergoing a fertility ritual, she remains unable to conceive. Until the end of season one. Not long afterwards, the Gaullish gladiator and probable father stabs her in the womb during a revolt.

Justified in the Stargate SG-1 episode "2010", where in an alternate timeline Sam and her husband Joseph Faxon have been trying for a couple of years now to have a baby. It turns out the off-world government that helped them defeat the Goa'uld has now sterilized most of Earth's population.

In season five of Stromberg, Jennifer gets pregnant with Stromberg's child, which was unwanted and thought they had used birth control. Conversely, in the same season, Tanja and Ulf are trying to have a child, but it turns out that Ulf is infertile.

In That '70s Show this trope is invoked when Eric and Donna realize that Donna had missed a day of her birth control and were therefore convinced that Donna was pregnant. Most teenagers don't realize that birth control doesn't stop working just because you missed one day, so their panic is understandable.

On The West Wing, we find out via flashbacks that Toby's wife Andi desperately wanted to have a baby, and they tried every fertility treatment under the sun. In the series timeline, they're divorced, but Andi becomes pregnant with Toby's twins — and then rejects his proposal of remarriage, saying that he's "sad," "angry" and "not warm," and she's worried about the influence he would have on the kids. Oddly, we're never told whether she finally had a successful in vitro fertilization using his stowed-away sperm or they rekindled their relationship long enough to do it the old-fashioned way. This is a point of contention in the fanbase: one side insists that it's too much of a long shot for Andi to have become pregnant just by luck, after failing for all those years, while the other maintains that if those are really her conclusions about Toby's potential as a family man, she wouldn't have intentionally made him the father of her children.

On The X-Files, Scully is not only told she is infertile, but that she had her ova removed. While she had never given that much thought to having children before, she did after hearing that. An in-vitro attempt with Mulder failed, as did trying to adopt, and yet by the end of season seven Scully is pregnant by circumstances never fully explained. However, Word of God did confirm that Mulder is the father of Baby William.

ER: The reactions of most of the women on this show who found themselves pregnant indicates that this trope applies. Commenters on other boards frequently expressed amazement that a group of medical professionals seemed so incapable of properly using birth control, if they even used it all, given how frequently unplanned/unwanted pregnancies happened. And the one couple that did plan a pregnancy—Doug and Carol—still had this trope apply. When they were blissfully happy together, they struggled to conceive, only for her to discover that she was pregnant just after he resigned in disgrace and left town.

Mike & Molly: After years of trying to get pregnant, Mike and Molly pursue adoption. In the series finale, their adopted baby is born. Molly, holding the baby and surrounded by family and friends, mentions those other stories about couples who get finally conceive when the pressure is off. And she'd just taken a pregnancy test, and now she's expecting. Awww.....

The TLC reality show I Didnt Know I Was Pregnant showed women talking about suddenly going into labor and having a baby without ever knowing they were carrying in the first place. If you're wondering how such a thing is possible, many women don't gain a noticeable amount of weight during pregnancy, especially if they're already overweight, and they might normally have irregular periods or experience minor bleeding during the pregnancy and mistake that for their period. It becomes Fridge Horror since the women may have been drinkers, recreational drug users, and/or took legit medication that could have interfered with a pregnancy. But in most cases, the babies were born perfectly healthy, though at least one was born in a toilet because the mom thought she had to use the bathroom...

The 10th Kingdom: Virginia and Wolf have a single tryst, from which she gets pregnant.

In American Horror Story: Freak Show, Desiree (the intersexed burlesque dancer with three breasts) suddenly experiences severe bleeding downstairs during sex. She's rushed to the hospital where the doctor informs her that she had a miscarriage, even though she thought it was impossible for her to ever become pregnant in the first place. The doctor informs her that her "penis" is actually an enlarged clitoris, which along with her third breast are the result of a hormonal imbalance, and a simple surgery could make her normal. However, her Armored Closet Gay husband threatens to kill him if he tries it. The series ends with her marrying a new man and having two children with him.

Music

Played with in The Decemberists' The Hazards Of Love concept album. The Rake, who really doesn't want kids, got four, although one died in childbirth. Subverted with the Star-Crossed Lovers William and Margaret, who, also in accordance with the trope, seem to conceive very quickly. Although it's kind of a problem, they're extremely happy about it. Too bad they die before the baby is born.

In Heather Dale's song "Changeling Child", a couple wants a child for twelve years, but the wife cannot have one. Driven to desperation, she bargains with the fairies to give her one — which turns out badly.

Mythology & Religion

Theseus's father visited an oracle to find out why he was childless. Theseus was conceived on the way home.

The Book of Genesis is ripe with examples of this trope; in fact, the only matriarchs who don't have problems conceiving are Eve and Leah (who in fact subverts this trope, having at least seven children). Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel were all infertile, and all three required divine intervention in order to have children.

Not just Genesis; the respective mothers of Samuel, Samson, John the Baptist, and, according to some apocryphal stories, Mary were all infertile. In fact, Michal, the wife of King David and daughter of King Saul, was the only notably infertile woman in the Bible who didn't eventually give birth (her infertility being a divine punishment).note Possibly. It might be a coincidence that by that point in the story she was forced into renewing her marriage with David, who didn't love her, took pleasure in embarrassing her, and only used her as a means to an end, to secure the kingship of Israel. Several Biblical scholars have suggested that the only reason Michal had no children was that David wasn't giving her any. What makes this all the more tragic is that years earlier, Michal had saved David's life from her own father Saul, then waited while David abandoned her. Saul married her to another man who, by all accounts, loved her and treated her well; but when Saul died and David took the throne, he took her away from her husband and remarried her solely to secure the kingship. You could see why she was bitter enough to insult David for dancing in front of the ark.

In many versions of the oft-edited King Arthur stories, Arthur and Guinevere want an heir but can't produce one, while a single dalliance with a woman who turned out to be his half-sister led to conception, birth, and eventually the child, Mordred, and Arthur inflicting a Mutual Kill on each other at Camlann.

Newspaper Comics

In For Better or for Worse Elly is absolutely horrified when she finds herself pregnant with April at 39. Connie reveals she's jealous because she and Greg had been trying for a baby with no luck, while April was an 'accident'.

Tabletop Games

Weird variant in the history of Forgotten Realms monarch Azoun of Cormyr: A red wizardess of Thay once used magic to seduce the king, apparently believing that their son could one day make a claim for the throne, stealing it from Azoun's legitimate daughters. Subverted in that, while she may well have succeeded in one try, Azoun had already sired so many illegitimate children in his bachelor-prince days that hers would have to get in line behind hundreds of older half-sibs. She may have gotten the son she wanted, but he won't be any use as a political pawn.

Blood Brothers is a major example of this trope - Mrs. Johnstone seems to have produced about ten kids and gives one away because she can't afford to have anymore. Ms. Lyons, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to have children of her own; but they can't conceive, and her husband refuses to adopt.

The Baker and his wife in Into the Woods want a child, but are magically cursed with infertility. Act 1 revolves around the quest they must complete before the Witch will lift the curse. (They have a baby in Act 2.)

Matilda plays this both ways. In the prologue, Mrs. Wormwood, who wanted anything but a second child, dishearteningly found out she was nine months pregnant with Matilda as she was preparing to compete in the Biannual International Salsa & Ballroom Dancing Championships. In the B-story told by Matilda, which is later revealed to be the story of Miss Honey's parents, the Acrobat and the Escapologist tried for years to conceive a child without success, until, on the day of their most dangerous stunt, "The Burning Woman Flying Through The Air With Dynamite In Her Hair... Caught by the Man Locked in the Cage", they found out that she was pregnant and attempted to cancel the performance; but contractual obligations forced them to perform anyway, and the Acrobat was gravely injured during the trick, dying after giving birth to their daughter.

Video Games

Subverted in the popular module A Dance with Rogues: if the princess and Vico are in a romance, she ends up pregnant with his baby, which adds more tension to the group, as they all fear the consequences this could have due to the horrible situation they're in. Eventually, though, some of them start cautiously warming up to the idea, possibly including the princess and definitely including Vico. Then the princess is captured by the Dhorn and infected with a demonic plague that kills the baby.

Played with in Baldur's Gate II in the form of Aerie, and more straightforwardly, the mod-added Mary Sues Kelsey and Saerileth.

Implied in one bit of dialogue in Story of Seasons (2014). Margot, who has a son, thinks that Corona, who is childless, is jealous of her because of this. It's unknown if this is true, however, since Corona never says anything about it.

Implied to be the case for any Grey Wardens who want children in the Dragon Age setting. Because of what they must do to join the order, it's very difficult for Grey Wardens to have children; most Grey Wardens who are parents became parents before their Joining. In the franchise thus far, there's only one confirmed case of a Grey Warden giving birth, and she's also the only one who somehow managed to not be a Grey Warden anymore. She has no idea how. It's something of a plot point at the end of Dragon Age: Origins if Alistair is king and marries the female Human Noble, because two Grey Wardens will have an even more difficult time conceiving, and they need an heir.

Visual Novels

In the sound novel Umineko: When They Cry, it takes Natsuhi and Krauss Ushiromiya 8 years after their marriage to conceive their daughter, Jessica. Krauss's ambitious younger sister Eva, however, gives birth almost immediately after she and Hideyoshi marry, so she tries to use this as a bargaining chip to secure her son George's headship in the family over Jessica.

Webcomics

Used in Arthur, King of Time and Spacehere. What kicks it up a notch is that it's the exact same people, but in different situations - one where they want to have a child, one where they don't. That particular comic makes it seem as though the desire to have a child is the one factor that keeps them from having one. Later averted in the space arc.

In the backstory of Blindsprings the royal family needs an heir, but two daughters are infertile and two died in childbirth, and two are too young to marry.

Eugene and Sara Greenhilt's contraceptive spell fails in The Order of the Stick, leading to the protagonist's unplanned birth and the end of his mother's freewheeling lifestyle (until she got to the afterlife, anyway!)

Durkon loses his virginity to Hilgya. They have sex once, and we find out 1000 pages later that she bore his child from the encounter.

Lampshaded in The Rant for Bring Back Roomies!, as Willis tries to work out whether or not Mary was using birth control, and if not why not (since Past!Willis hadn't explained this) before concluding "Ah well. I guess the likelihood of getting pregnant when youre evil and having dramatically hypocritical sex is about 1:1."

In Kevin & Kell, the sheep Corrie and Bruno had always wanted to have children, but they had planned on adopting to ensure they'd have a herbivore like them. (Context: Bruno is a wolf that transitioned into a herbivorous ram, and Corrie is half wolf through her father, so there was a good chance any biological child they had would be a carnivore.) When they decided to go for a biological child anyway, they tried for months until they found they wouldn't be able to have one. Lindesfarne's blog reveals it's because Corrie has a high chance of dying in childbirth like her mother did. They go back to their initial plan of adoption. Ironically, though, they end up adopting the insectivore Carla Chameleon.

Web Original

Quite a few surprise pregnancies occur in Chakona Space, most notably Admiral Boyce's first three children (all by different mothers of supposedly incompatible species). On the other hand, most characters who want kids usually have little trouble making them, the major exception being Forestwalker's foxmorph mates Katrina and Kristopher.

Frequently happens in The Gungan Council. Beth gets knocked up after her first time ever and Kirk, who vehemently does not want children, knocks someone up as well with just one encounter.note The woman he knocked up decided to terminate the child anyway, yet for her own reasons.

In Receiver of Many Demeter states that divine offspring are usually conceived during the first time god or goddess have sex with someone. This explains why Zeus has so many bastards running around despite the fact that he rarely beds the same women twice. However, Persephone, who actively wants to have children with her husband, cannot conceive despite her best efforts. Everyone thinks thats because Hades is infertile. The truth is that Hades and Persephone can create life together, but it doesnt take a form of a child but energy that renews earth each time Persephone comes back to the surface.

In a CollegeHumor animation that parodies those health class films shown to children about puberty, that discusses the pitfalls of aging, the trope is lampshaded. "A 15-year-old girl making a mistake on prom night has a better chance of getting pregnant than a 40-year-old woman actively trying to conceive with her husband." In the animation itself, a teenage girl goes into a bathroom with her boyfriend while an adult woman gets in bed with her husband... followed by the girl suddenly developing an Obvious Pregnancy right away, and the adult woman crying at a doctor's office as yet another pregnancy test comes back negative.

Averted with extreme prejudice in Ask Serious Rainbow: Serious is thrilled to find out she's infertile as she never wanted her own children (she's adopted Scootaloo, anyway), and that means she no longer has to take the anti-pregnancy elixir. That doesn't apply when she bends her gender, though, so Applejack still has to take it. She also criticizes the use of this trope to inject drama, claiming anyone who does so "can't write for shit" and finds it galling that she has to clarify that she's not mocking the trope.

Western Animation

Happened in Family Guy, where Lois and Peter tried to have a fourth baby. Of course, they had Stewie actively working against them, and eventually shrinking down to destroy every sperm in Peter's body. Manually. He meets a sperm he considers a worthy ally and abandons the plan, only for Peter and Lois to decide they actually don't want a fourth kid.

Delicately handled in The Flintstones, where it is implied that Barney and Betty Rubble are unable to conceive a child. After the birth of their goddaughter Pebbles, the Rubbles come by to see the new baby every night until one day Fred thoughtlessly orders them out of the house, which drives Betty to tears. Fortunately, their prayers are answered when the next day presents them with a Doorstop Baby, Bamm-Bamm.

A flashback episode of King of the Hill reveals that prior to conceiving Bobby, Hank had been declared infertile due to a narrow urethra, which was exacerbated by his habitual uptightness. He and Peggy gave up on trying to have a baby and got a puppy (Ladybird) instead. Playing with the puppy was relaxing enough to counteract Hank's anatomical difficulties, and pregnancy ensued.

Later, when Hank and Peggy are trying to have a second child, Hank's seventy-something father Cotton winds up having a child with his forty-something wife Didi. After the baby is born and both parents are neglecting him, Peggy even miserably alludes to the fact that she can't have a child while they somehow got to have a "beautiful child they don't even want." The episode ends with Peggy rocking the baby to sleep with her toes, despite being in a full-body cast.

Princess Carolyn is desperate for a family of her own despite being in her forties, but during her life has had no fewer than five miscarriages and is still unmarried. This reaches a climax in "Ruthie" when she breaks up with her fiance after miscarrying their child. However, in season five she is seeking to adopt, and in the season finale, becomes the adoptive mother of a newborn baby girl.

In season three, upon hearing that Diane is planning on getting an abortion, Princess Carolyn sarcastically pities her for having a husband and being able to have children while she herself has neither.

The Simpsons - Apu and Manjula are trying to have a child with no success. Apu asks Homer how he and Marge did it, and Homer laughingly notes that each of their kids was unintentional. He then tries to deliberately invoke this trope to help them - staging an entire setup where they were having sex dressed in teenage-y clothes in the backseat of a car, while Majula reads her lines in a monotone: "Oh no, I hope I don't get pregnant."

And of course, because apparently every member of the Simpson family sans Maggie was slipping Manjula fertility drugs, they have octuplets.

In the ThunderCats (2011) episode "Native Son" a flashback reveals that the king and queen of Thundera tried to have a child for years. It got so bad that the queen worried she might be infertile. Their concerns were put to rest when baby Tygra literally flew into their lives in a balloon. So of course, just when the royal couple has gotten comfortable with Tygra inheriting the throne as crown prince, the queen became pregnant. Then she died in childbirth, so little Tygra lost his mother and the throne in one night.

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